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Newcastle coach speaks of botched move for Schweini

Newcastle only sold James Milner in 2008 as they thought they could sign Bastian Schweinsteiger to replace him.

According to former coach Terry McDermott, the club reluctantly accepted a bid of around £15m for Milner in 2008, but only as they believed they had a deal in place to replace him with Schweinsteiger.

However, Bayern Munich, Schweinsteiger’s club at the time, refused to sell the then-24-year-old midfielder for anything less than £50m, leaving Kevin Keegan’s side without a replacement for the departed Milner.

“We were actually at the club when we sold him, myself and Kevin Keegan,” McDermott begins. “We sold him for £15million.

“The story goes – and this is a true story – we didn’t want him to leave but we needed to get other players in because we’d had a bid of £15m.

“Kevin said ‘if we sell him for £15m, how are we going to replace him?”

“They said ‘we’ve already got one – Schweinsteiger’. He’s at Man United now but seven or eight years ago he was a superstar and they said we could get him.

“The idea of accepting the bid of £15m for Milner, which was a lot of money then, and then we’re looking to get Schweinsteiger – it’s a no brainer.

“But after he’s signed for Villa – the day after – we’re trying to sign Schweinsteiger and the answer was ‘absolutely no chance, it will cost you £50 million if you wanted to buy Schweinsteiger’.